Tuesday, September 18, 2012

After about 15 minutes of fierce facial Hipstamatics of a scarred Penelope Tree wannabe…I bailed. Never to return. This Revolution will definitely not be televised.

When clips of the new NBC sci-fi show “Revolution” debuted online this spring, a scene set in Chicago depicted some of the show’s characters walking past an abandoned Wrigley Field in the year 2027. Beneath the stadium’s familiar red marquee was a sign declaring the Cubs “2012 World Series champions.”

The premise of “Revolution” is that some mysterious force saps the planet of its electricity in 2012, bringing life as we know it to a halt. Governments are toppled. Lawlessness reigns. And, 15 years later, there is no more Major League Baseball.

But when the show premiered Monday night, the Wrigley Field scene shown in the trailer was different. Gone was the declaration of the Cubs as champs, replaced by a plain red background beneath the marquee. Everything else about the post-apocalyptic scene remained the same — still Wrigley Field, still abandoned, still no electricity.

Four months after the original clip appeared, the real 2012 Cubs have the second-worst record in baseball and are mathematically eliminated from any chance of making the playoffs.

Apparently even the bounds of science fiction can be stretched only so far.

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Ahhh -- good... Now I can stop soiling the OTP thread with my OT sci-fi talk.

For the record, I'm in the minority in thinking that Revolution was pretty good.

For the record, I visited Wrigley Field on a tour between games 1 and 2 of this seasaon.

I didn't get to watch a game, but I am quite happy to have seen the old girl.

I traded up to get field seats to one of the Springsteen shows a couple weeks back. Most of the field was covered, of course, but it wasn't complete. I entered about an hour early just to see how much I could wander around - and I'm happy to say, quite a bit. I could walk to and touch the ivy. I could pick up a handful of IF dirt right before the lip between in the IF and OF. I got to take a faux stretch on one of the bullpen mounds. The Boss show was phenomenal, too -- but spending an hour just walking around on the field was pretty cool.

It was okay. Not great, possibly not good. I'll probably keep watching for a few weeks, since I'm such a sucker for stuff like this.

What really got to me though was how badly thought out this whole blackout event was and how it clearly can't be anything but a "act of god" type of thing: An EMP would have still left antique (pre-circuitry) electronics working [including old cars] as well as presumably military hardware. A solar flare would have mainly affected the infrastructure, not the batteries, phones and cars. If the Hurley-esque genius is right in that the laws of physics just stopped working, then shouldn't LIGHTNING no longer exist? Or the electrical impulses that the brain uses to control our bodies? This change of physics (with the exception of those around the MacGuffin) could only possibly be an act of god style cop-out. Either that, or it's Klaatu's revenge.

Oh, and why did the airplanes just drop like bricks out of the sky- did Isaac Newton run on electricity? ("Electric Newton" would make a great band name)

That said, all of this is still more realistic than the idea that the Cubs could have been 2012 World Series Champions.

I watched the Revolutioin premiere last night (downloaded for free on ITunes).

It was watchable, though it sort of felt like a bunch of other shows I've seen in the past (I even got a back-to-Caprica-during-early-BSG-feel).

I did like the fact that at some times it had a decidedly Alex Raymond/Al Williamson/Tom Yeates/Mark Schultz swashbuckly/dystopian feel to it (and yes, I'm a big comic book nerd). To the extent that's emphasized in the future, I may keep watching.

I did like the fact that at some times it had a decidedly Alex Raymond/Al Williamson/Tom Yeates/Mark Schultz swashbuckly/dystopian feel to it (and yes, I'm a big comic book nerd). To the extent that's emphasized in the future, I may keep watching.

Exactly the way I feel. Forget adding a new mystery every week. You know what made Star Trek awesome? There was sci-fi every week and you didn't need a journal to keep up. SG-1 lasted 10 years (Atlantis another 2) because there was one overarching story that was focused on every now and then in a season (much like the early seasons of X-Files). I don't know when it was decided that sci-fi fans wanted endless plot twists, but I'm tired of it. A nice, dystopian future story with no "twists" sounds just like what the doctor ordered. I hope we get it.

BTW, this is the reason that the first season of Falling Skies was awesome and why I probably won't tune in for the third.

Exactly the way I feel. Forget adding a new mystery every week. You know what made Star Trek awesome? There was sci-fi every week and you didn't need a journal to keep up. SG-1 lasted 10 years (Atlantis another 2) because there was one overarching story that was focused on every now and then in a season (much like the early seasons of X-Files). I don't know when it was decided that sci-fi fans wanted endless plot twists, but I'm tired of it. A nice, dystopian future story with no "twists" sounds just like what the doctor ordered. I hope we get it.

BTW, this is the reason that the first season of Falling Skies was awesome and why I probably won't tune in for the third.

I can't stand stand alone episodes type shows anymore. Every time I see one now I just picture Angela Lansbury as the main character in the show nowadays. I think the self contained episode each week thing is the main flaw in a ton of BBC shows nowadays and it makes it hard to watch them. For instance MI-5 or Spooks or whatever it was called got to the point where in every single episode they were basically saving either an entire city, country, or world in 1 hour and that kind of power creep in a show just gets silly after a while.

Early season X-Files didn't really take a main-story arc theme seriously. It was all just filler and it wasn't mapped out which is why it only popped up now and then. The show was meant to be a self contained mystery episode each week.

I can't stand stand alone episodes type shows anymore. Every time I see one now I just picture Angela Lansbury as the main character in the show nowadays. I think the self contained episode each week thing is the main flaw in a ton of BBC shows nowadays and it makes it hard to watch them. For instance MI-5 or Spooks or whatever it was called got to the point where in every single episode they were basically saving either an entire city, country, or world in 1 hour and that kind of power creep in a show just gets silly after a while.

I generally agree with this but I get frustrated by shows that forget to make each episode worth watching. I was fortunate that I watched Lost after 5 seasons were complete (and I was blissfully unaware of just about every major plot twist) but I don't know if I could have survived Season Three when Jack, Kate and Sawyer were held captive for a few episodes. There needs to be some self-contained plot within each episode and that is tough to do while keeping the focus on the longer term plot line.

You mentioned MI-5 which I have to admit I absolutely love but you're right. I found that after about 6 seasons I kind of ran out of steam with it. Having said that I loved that unlike most shows even main characters were at risk of being killed off. That really added to the experience but they were at their best from about the end of season 2 through the start of season 4 when there was a bit more of an overriding theme around the series rather than an episode to episode "let's save the world."

I can't stand stand alone episodes type shows anymore. Every time I see one now I just picture Angela Lansbury as the main character in the show nowadays. I think the self contained episode each week thing is the main flaw in a ton of BBC shows nowadays and it makes it hard to watch them. For instance MI-5 or Spooks or whatever it was called got to the point where in every single episode they were basically saving either an entire city, country, or world in 1 hour and that kind of power creep in a show just gets silly after a while.

Early season X-Files didn't really take a main-story arc theme seriously. It was all just filler and it wasn't mapped out which is why it only popped up now and then. The show was meant to be a self contained mystery episode each week

Not a Doctor Who fan? It's got something of an arc, but it's still largely standalone.

Strictly from a narrative perspective, I personally think the Stargate franchise (at least, SG-1 and Atlantis -- SGU was a somewhat different animal) hit it just right... There was an overarching villain that hovered over the entire series and there were occasionally multi-episode - even 1/4-1/3/-1/2 season arcs - but it was still largely a lot of self-contained episodes that didn't necessarily require seeing the previous week's episode.

BTW, this is the reason that the first season of Falling Skies was awesome and why I probably won't tune in for the third.

Actually, I was ready to give up on Falling Skies after season one, but personally think it found new life in season two. That's less an opinion based on self-contained versus continued mystery illumination and more a matter of thinking that season two was just darker and a bit more hard-edged than I thought season one was, though.

On one hand, as a sci-fi geek - it makes me happy that lately, networks seem to be interested in creating things like Revolution, Falling Skies, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones (if you want to mix sci-fi/fantasy), etc. It's hard for me to see how this isn't one of the best times to be a sci-fi fan, at least based on the fact that so many networks seem eager to cater to "us" (even while the channel that is supposedly all about sci-fi appears almost completely uninterested in science fiction).

On the other, and I say this most certainly NOT as a sci-fi elitist who believes all sci-fi needs to be hard-boiled Asimov/Heinlein/Dick true believer stuff -- I do worry that so many of these network sci-fi efforts seem intent on 'expanding the audience'... creating family/teen/whatever dramas that just happen to have a sci-fi backdrop.

I enjoy both weekly and serial shows, but I really dislike the weekly shows that pretend to be serials (this is mostly about Burn Notice). If you have an overarching plot, then it has to sometimes change and make a difference. You can't just keep resetting it entirely so that you can go back to the weekly stuff.

his change of physics (with the exception of those around the MacGuffin) could only possibly be an act of god style cop-out. Either that, or it's Klaatu's revenge.

Except that can't be the answer, unless the show's writers assume that everyone will forget the first five minutes of the show. The one guy knew what was going to happen and when it was going to happen (at least right before it happened). He called his brother and tried to tell him. Unless he had God on speed dial, the writer's must have some other explanation in mind.

I can't stand stand alone episodes type shows anymore. Every time I see one now I just picture Angela Lansbury as the main character in the show nowadays. I think the self contained episode each week thing is the main flaw in a ton of BBC shows nowadays and it makes it hard to watch them.

I kind of wish Alcatraz had kept going, because I thought it had a good formula that was set up well for a mix of stand-alone episodes that still find a way to drive the over-arching story. I didn't have to watch every week to enjoy watching them go after another former inmate, but they still had bits and pieces that left you waiting to find out more next week. Fringe started this way, going after a monster every week while trying to determine how it fit into the pattern. They pretty much abandoned that for the parallel universe thing, for better or worse.